I take the internet moderately seriously - for better or worse, I do seem to care what people think, even if they're faceless automatons typing away out there in digital space.
I think people's attitudes in general tend to vary. There's something about the relative safety of not seeing another person face to face that influences the way we communicate on the internet. Some of us use it as a venue for personal confessions we wouldn't otherwise air, and some of us can be real jerks. There is one person I'm thinking of, who I met via another website where people can make comments and have conversations (but not really a message board). We exchanged emails and pictures, and I thought we were friends, except when it came to the public comments he made on the website, some of them have been really quite insulting. It may be that he doesn't realize, being from another country, or it may be that this guy is just a jerk. In any case, I take his comments seriously enough that I no longer want to email him. I doubt that he understands that for whatever reason.
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